The Only Way Forward

Gift article https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/opinion/israel-gaza-peace-ceasefire.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BE0.fg1t.IO_xD7qqV6oQ&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare]

It is said that wars end when both sides conclude they have nothing more to gain by fighting. By that logic, Israel and the Palestinians should have long ago agreed to the only solution that makes sense: separate states side by side. They’ve tried, again and again, but in this cauldron of religious passion and competing grievances, peace has always lost out. Is there any chance that things will be different when the guns fall silent this time?

On the face of it, it does not seem promising. The brutal attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the massive Israeli retaliatory assault on Gaza have already led to too much death and destruction and have ignited communal hatreds in the United States and beyond. Every eruption in the past — whether war, intifada or military raid — has only demonstrated that neither side can achieve its longed-for security, dignity or peace through violence. On the contrary, every eruption only hardens divisions and ensures more bloodshed next time.

In fact, what peace might look like is not a mystery: The shape of a Palestinian state has been explored in minute detail by successive peace conferences, meetings, negotiations and private initiatives, collectively known — or derided, in their apparent futility — as the peace process. The Oslo Accords of the 1990s were a major breakthrough in bringing hardened Palestinian and Israeli commanders to the table and establishing basic principles of coexistence. In 2000, Ehud Barak, Israel’s prime minister at the time, put a significant offer on the table to the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat for a two-state solution, which he rejected as insufficient and failed to meet with any serious counteroffer. Several years later, Mr. Barak’s successor Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, met 36 times over nearly two years to hammer out a detailed plan that involved swapping some land, sharing Jerusalem, creating a free passage between the West Bank and Gaza and cooperating on business and resources.

That initiative foundered, as they all did, through violence, politics and circumstance: the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a clash with Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Olmert’s resignation and Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory, the ouster of the Palestinian Authority from Gaza. Extremists — be it Palestinian Islamists determined to destroy the Jewish state or Israeli settlers determined to push Palestinians out of the West Bank — knew they could undermine any effort toward peace through provocation or terrorism.